A Perfect Storm Brewing?
By Dr. Jackson Janes

A true perfect storm is a rare occurrence both in meteorology and in politics. Like a hurricane heading towards the United States, the path of an election, while predictable up to a point, always leaves room for uncertainties and anxieties before and after, leaving pundits and politicians to pick through the aftermath looking for explanations and justifications for the results.

Four years ago, Florida was the site of a perfect political storm which no one was able to predict. The repercussions of that storm have still not fully abated, as the bitter battle for the White House has been demonstrating for the past several months. Perhaps it is no accident that the first debate between President Bush and Senator Kerry should take place in that very same state which, battered by political turmoil in 2000, has now been hit with an unprecedented number of natural disasters in the past few weeks. How will an exhausted and uncertain electorate view the choices it has? Does President Bush control the advantage the White House bestows as a symbol of leadership in the face of domestic and foreign threats? Or does Senator Kerry represent a welcome alternative to a public anxious about the future of Iraq, their pension programs, jobs or health care? At this point, the path of the storm is uncertain.

In Germany too, political storms raged throughout the month of September. Three state elections and a widely watched communal election were seen as bellwethers for the state of the nation and the status of the governing coalition as well as the opposition. Winning an absolute majority in early September, a CDU wave came in to swamp the SPD in the home state of Oskar Lafontaine, the Saarland. Two weeks later, a different storm occurred. In Saxony, the CDU lost its decade long held absolute majority, the SPD fell below the 10 percent mark and the right wing Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) [National Democratic Party of Germany] was able to enter a state parliament for the first time since 1968 with close to 10 percent of the vote. The PDS remained the second strongest presence in the Landtag. In Brandenburg, both the CDU and the SPD lost ground, while the PDS became the second strongest party represented in the state parliament. As in Saxony, a right wing group, in this case the Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) [German People's Union], which gained barely enough support to keep its seats in the Landtag, profited from the losses of the major parties.

September storm clouds then settled over Germany's largest state, North Rhine-Westphalia, on September 26th for the communal elections. Once again, the storm's path remained unpredictable, leaving the CDU and the SPD with damage control in action once more while the Greens and the FDP picked up support in this last election of the year. As the two major parties, both the CDU and the SPD took heavy hits for the continuing uncertainty among the German electorate about the course and cost of reforms, while the smaller parties gained from voters' insecurities.

In both Germany and the United States, only the fervent would be expecting that when the storms of political contests pass there will be an opening in the sky and a rainbow will appear over the political horizon. Who ever wins the election in the United States on November 2nd will be facing not only an enormous set of problems at home and abroad. He will also be facing a public which will be as anxious about the future as they were before the election. The path of the storms in Iraq, of the American -- and therefore the world's -- economy, and of terrorist strikes are difficult to predict.

Germans are facing similar uncertainties with their stagnant economy, high unemployment, the changes and social upheaval wrought by Hartz IV, as well as difficult questions of foreign policy clouding their future. So far, each of these many state and local elections, eventually leading toward the national elections two years from now, have provided the electorate an opportunity to let off steam. Whether this is a good basis from which to decide Germany's future is questionable.

One election alone will not settle any long term issues and questions. The fact is that both countries need a serious and substantive debate about priorities and policies, and election campaigns do not lend themselves easily to such deliberations. In the United States, the race to the lowest common denominator of exchanges between the candidates is reflected in the intricate staging of the so-called debates between Kerry and Bush, making it appear more like a Japanese Kabuki play rather than a forceful confrontation of views and opinions.

While no one can complain about the lack of talking heads gathered around television monitors on either side of the Atlantic, the real question is: who is listening? There is no lack of political pulse taking among pundits and pollsters. But do they contribute to leadership or learning about what it is that needs to done?

The leadership in Washington and in Berlin has to recognize that there is a looming deficit when it comes to providing a clear and convincing message as to why change, challenge, and choices are not easy and require sacrifice. In Germany, the appearance of the right wing groups in Brandenburg and Saxony is less a reason to be alarmed about the political culture of that troubled region than a reason to work harder at addressing the needs of a younger generation without a sense of ownership in their society. In the United States, the harsh clash of the political forces working for election night victory is indicative of the loss of comity and commitment to some shared goals that arose in the wake of post 9/11 fears and anger.

While we each have these problems at home, it will be that much more difficult for the leaders of our two countries to find common ground with each other in facing the world's dangers and challenges. If we are transfixed by the possibility of a perfect storm on our political home front, we may fail to notice that there are ways we can lend each other a hand against the major storms that threaten us all. Even if the next storm facing us is not that rare and terrible "perfect storm," a succession of average hurricanes can itself cause complete devastation, as the battered citizens of Florida can attest, and there are always more storms brewing.

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This essay appeared in the September 30, 2004 AICGS Advisor.